It was a sunny room, gay with light color and dainty furnishings, having long window-doors that opened to the garden. An Aubusson carpet of palest green, with a festoon pattern of pink roses, covered two-thirds of the blocked, polished floor. The empanelled walls were white, with here a gilt mirror, flanked on either side by a girandole in ormolu. A spinet stood open in mid-chamber, and upon it were sheets of music, a few books and a bowl of emerald-green ware, charged now with roses, whose fragrance lay heavy on the air. There were two or three small tables of very dainty, fragile make, and the chairs were in delicately-tinted tapestry illustrating the fables of La Fontaine. It was an apartment looked upon by Hortensia as her own withdrawing-room, set apart for her own use, and as that the household--her very ladyship included--had ever recognized it. His lordship closed the door with care. Hortensia took her seat upon the long stool that stood at the spinet, her back to the instrument, and with hands idle in her lap--the same cold reserve upon her countenance-she awaited his communication. He advanced until he was close beside her, and stood leaning an elbow on the corner of the spinet, a long and not ungraceful figure, with the black curls of his full-bottomed wig falling about his swarthy, big-featured face. “I have but my farewells to make, Hortensia,” said he. “I am leaving Stretton House, to-day, at last.” “I am glad,” said she, in a formal, level voice, “that things should have fallen out so as to leave you free to go your ways.” “You are glad,” he answered, frowning slightly, and leaning farther towards her. “Ay, and why are you glad? Why? You are glad for Mr. Caryll's sake. Do you deny it?” She looked up at him quite calm and fearlessly. “I am glad for your own sake, too.” His dark brooding eyes looked deep into hers, which did not falter under his insistent gaze. “Am I to believe you?” he inquired. “Why not? I do not wish your death.” “Not my death--but my absence?” he sneered. “You wish for that, do you not? You would prefer me gone? My room is better than my company just now? 'Tis what you think, eh?” “I have not thought of it at all,” she answered him with a pitiless frankness. He laughed, soft and wickedly. “Is it so very hopeless, then? You have not thought of it at all by which you mean that you have not thought of me at all.” “Is't not best so? You have given me no cause to think of you to your advantage. I am therefore kind to exclude you from my thoughts.” “Kind?” he mocked her. “You think it kind to put me from your mind--I who love you, Hortensia!” She rose upon the instant, her cheeks warming faintly. “My lord,” said she, “I think there is no more to be said between us.”